Lenovo, Linux, and the Coming of the Chromebooks

Lenovo's announcement that it would start selling Chromebooks to schools caused quite a buzz in FOSS-Land. It's being interpreted as a nail in Microsoft's coffin. "I would say, What took you so long, Lenovo?" Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol. "Chromebooks are hot, and it's their prime time. You see, all that BS that the netbook is dead, is, indeed, just BS."

By Katherine Noyes
01/21/13 5:00 AM PT

However great the strides made by user-friendly distros such as Ubuntu and Mint in recent years, it seems fair to say that Linux has not yet enjoyed any sweeping successes on the desktop the way it has on the mobile side with Android.

That, however, may be changing.

Thanks once again to none other than Google, Linux is now appearing with increasing frequency in the PC lineups of hardware makers including not just Acer and Samsung -- whose Chromebook is no less than Amazon's
top-selling laptop -- but now
Lenovo as well.

Schools may be the initial target for Lenovo's machines, but given Samsung's success, in particular, there's no telling what may come.

Bottom line? It just may be "another nail in Microsoft's coffin," as it
was recently put.

A Rapturous Response

Now, mention the words "Microsoft's coffin," and you'll soon get the rapt attention of more than a few Linux fans.

Attribute it to something Linux-based -- such as Chrome OS -- and you'll have a party on your hands.

That, indeed, was pretty much the scenario down at the Linux blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Saloon when news of Lenovo's new machine arrived.

Linux Girl fired up her Quick Quotes Quill and recorded as much as she could.

"Hopefully Lenovo is just the next in a long line of hardware manufacturers," enthused Google+ blogger
Linux Rants, for example.

"The environment is fast, stable, and safe from many of the threats that plague modern day PCs," Linux Rants explained. "Add to that that they're remarkably inexpensive, and you've got a winning combination for a sizable percentage of computer users.

"Add that to Android tablets, and you've got enough to put some serious hurt on Microsoft and its waning desktop domination," he added. "The sooner the better."

'People Don't Want M$ Crapware'

In fact, "I would say, What took you so long, Lenovo?" Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol told Linux Girl. "Chromebooks are hot, and it's their prime time.

Microsoft "proclaimed the netbook dead because it could not succeed on that market," he suggested. "Intel also is not good with ant-sized processors. Now, we're seeing a boost in Chromebooks sales."

So what's the lesson here? "It's not that people don't want small computers; people don't want small computers loaded with M$ crapware (and worse, paying a premium for it)," Ebersol opined. "I would like to be a tiny fly on the wall in Redmond and see the red face of Mr. Throwing Chairs, when he realizes people are buying the 'dead' netbooks (Chromebooks) and Surface is just getting dust on retailers' shelves."

"In that sense, Lenovo is welcome," he told Linux Girl. "I think this will open the door for some GNU/Linux distributions into some other models of Lenovo, and other computer makers. Once their Chrome OS computer is a hit, they'll taste the Linux world. So be it!"

'This Fits the Trend'

And again: "There is a definite trend to having content live on the Internet and just accessing it with your device, and this fits the trend," Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien concurred.

"Think of streaming music, streaming video, and how phones and tablets are used to access them," he explained.

"The big weakness with phones and tablets is that typing is very hard," O'Brien pointed out. "A Chromebook gives you that with six hours or more of battery life and reduced weight. It won't make all laptops obsolete, but you can see where it fits."

'Put Down the Crack Pipe'

"Not only does Win 8 make Vista look like a hit, not only is it driving sales down when the OEMs were already hurting thanks to brain-dead ideas hoisted on them by Wintel like ultrabooks and touchscreens where they made no sense, but MSFT has made it clear that they see the future as 'MSFT hardware running MSFT software that can only get programs through a MSFT app store' a la iOS," hairyfeet explained.

"I've said it before and I've said it again: the board at MSFT needs to put down the crack pipe before it completely obliterates what Bill took 30 years to build," he concluded.

'Competition Is a Great Thing'

"Sticking with Wintel may provide a slowly sinking revenue forever, but Lenovo requires growth," blogger
Robert Pogson pointed out. "They had to break the mold to get that.

"For most of Wintel, OEMs were in fierce competition with tiny margins," Pogson explained. "Thanks to M$, they could not cut prices for the OS. They had to cut on hardware, which made competition even more difficult."

Then, "when ARM became popular on smartphones, many millions saw that Intel was not required to have fun, a lot of fun," he suggested. "Lenovo could not ship ever-more-powerful Intel processors to retain market share. Every OEM now has to ship ARM and x86/amd64 with GNU/Linux and Android/Linux in order to avoid losing share to those rapidly growing segments."

Now it's become clear that "smart thingies are not just accessories but main computers for people," he added. "Lenovo sees that and has to ship what people want or they will get it elsewhere."

In short, "competition is a great thing," Pogson concluded. "Thanks to M$'s inability to fit a rapidly changing market, we are returning to a free market after decades of corrupt anti-competitive deals. It had to come eventually, but it's better late than never."

Katherine Noyes has been writing from behind Linux Girl's cape since late 2007, but she knows how to be a reporter in real life, too. She's particularly interested in space, science, open source software and geeky things in general. You can also
find her on Twitter and
Google+.